Dam Break Inundation Modelling Using Hydrodynamic Modelling of any River
National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) · Disaster Management · Software
The demo is striking and the data is free, but this is specialist flood hydrodynamics where correctness matters — build on a validated open solver rather than rolling your own physics, and have an honest answer for how you validated the inundation extent.
Data: Open-source remote sensing (Sentinel, Landsat) and ASTER/SRTM or other DEM
What it actually is
When a dam breaks or a natural landslide-dam gives way, a wall of water floods the valley below, and authorities need to know in advance how much water flows and which areas get inundated. The ask is a software tool that automatically simulates a dam-break flood over real terrain and maps the resulting inundated area, using terrain and satellite data for any river.
What to build
A dam-break simulation tool that takes a river's terrain from a DEM plus satellite imagery, lets the user define a dam location and breach scenario, simulates the resulting flood wave propagating down the valley using a hydrodynamic method — the description names Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics and Delft3D and asks to compare scenarios — and outputs the inundation extent, arrival time and depth over the lower catchment as a map, so disaster-relief planners can see which areas and settlements would be impacted and when.
Smallest thing that wins the room
Define a breach on a real river reach, run the simulation, and show the flood wave propagating down the valley over time with the inundation map growing to reveal which downstream settlements are affected and the arrival time at each.
How crowded this one gets
A guess, projected from the 2025 statements — the last year where both the submission counts and the winners were published.
Quieter than 50% of the 226 · #114 of 226 by expected field
A normal-sized field. Your idea has to be good, not miraculous.
Why: defence, intelligence and space bodies drew small fields.
This is a guess, not a fact
Nobody has published 2026’s numbers yet. This is an analysed estimate from last year’s pattern, so please do not take it as the truth — check the live counter on the SIH portal before you decide anything. The range covers the middle half of likely outcomes, so one statement in two lands outside it. Entry closes at 500 ideas per statement, so no range goes past that — a statement that reaches the cap fills and shuts rather than drawing an unlimited crowd. The model reads only three things a team can see before choosing — software or hardware, the theme, and what kind of body posted it — and those explain about a quarter of the variation in last year’s field sizes (R² 0.25 on held-out statements). Trust the band more than the number, and the ordering more than either. It cannot see how good your idea is, which is the part that actually decides it.
The scores
The number is the shorthand. The line under it is the reason.
Acceptance potential
3/5The demo is compelling and the data is free, but flood hydrodynamics is specialist CFD where correctness matters, validation without observed data is weak, and an NTRO or disaster-domain judge will ask how the model was verified — so a visually convincing but physically unvalidated simulation is the risk.
Feasibility
3/5Free DEMs and satellite imagery are available and open hydrodynamic solvers exist, but shallow-water and SPH flood modelling is genuine computational fluid dynamics requiring correct physics, breach parameterisation and numerical stability, and validating the result without observed flood data is hard — this is specialist hydraulics rather than an application build.
Innovation scope
3/5The physics is established and the description even names the modelling methods, so your room is in the automation, the terrain preprocessing and the scenario comparison rather than in the modelling approach.
Clarity
4/5The description gives concrete real-world examples, names the DEM and imagery sources, and specifies the modelling methods and the inundation-mapping output, so the deliverable is well defined even though the physics is demanding.
Effort
MassiveTerrain preprocessing, breach modelling, a numerically stable hydrodynamic solver over real DEM data, and inundation mapping with scenario comparison is a large effort dominated by getting the fluid dynamics right.
Demo-ability
EasyA flood wave animating down a real valley with the inundation map growing over time is a genuinely striking, self-explanatory disaster-response visual.
In its favour
- Green flag: Free DEMs and satellite imagery mean the terrain and reference data come at no cost for any river you choose
- Green flag: Open hydrodynamic solvers like ANUGA and LISFLOOD-FP exist, so you can build on validated physics rather than a hand-rolled model
- Green flag: The flood-wave-down-a-valley animation is one of the most viscerally compelling disaster demos available
- Green flag: The real-world examples in the description give you concrete scenarios to reconstruct and discuss
Against it
- Red flag: Flood hydrodynamics is genuine CFD, and breach parameterisation, numerical stability and boundary conditions all have to be right or the simulation is confidently wrong
- Red flag: Validation is hard — without observed flood extents you cannot verify your inundation map, and a judge will ask exactly how you know it is correct
- Red flag: SPH for a catchment-scale flood is computationally heavy, so naive implementation will not run at useful resolution in reasonable time
- Red flag: DEM resolution limits inundation accuracy in exactly the narrow valleys where flash floods are most dangerous
What you will be writing
- Shallow-water / SPH flood solver (ANUGA, LISFLOOD-FP, or PySPH)
- SRTM / ASTER DEM terrain preprocessing
- Breach parameterisation and hydrograph generation
- Sentinel/Landsat inundation reference
- GDAL + rasterio terrain processing
- Time-stepped inundation map visualisation
- Flood modelling
- Hydrodynamic simulation
- Disaster response
Prior art to read before you start
dam-break flood simulation · hydrodynamic inundation mapping · flash flood scenario generation
Analysed by Claude Opus. Every score above is a judgment call with its reasoning attached — kindly cross-check this against the official statement on the SIH portal before your team commits to it.